The current membership of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) is almost evenly divided between whaling and non-whaling nations, resulting in a political deadlock which makes it extremely difficult to secure the 3/4 majority of votes needed to enact change. As talks stall, commercial whaling practices continue to take place and increase yearly without any international control and many species of whales are on the brink of extinction. According to Save the Whales:
· The Gray whale in the North Atlantic is extinct.
· The Indus Susu, or Indian River dolphin, is barely hanging onto its shrunken habitat.
· The European stock of Bowhead whales, between east Greenland and Novaya Zemba, is almost extinct.
· The Northern Pacific Right whales, the Korean stock of Gray whales, and the Cochito, or Gulf of California porpoise may soon be gone.
The BBC reported that a source close to the talks blamed Japan for holding up the progress, because it won’t agree to large enough cuts in its annual “scientific” Antarctic hunt. At a meeting held last month in San Francisco, Japan offered to cut its target level to 650 minke whales, 29 less than were caught last year. Japan also said at the meeting that in return for this concession, it wants to set a small annual quota of 150 whales for four of its coastal villages, where whaling has traditionally been practiced and is part of the culture’s heritage.
Environmental groups are not in support of this request because there is no way to monitor how the whale hunting is conducted, as it mostly takes place in waters where international ships have no jurisdiction.
Japan, Norway and Iceland want to continue whaling on as large a scale as possible and all three countries are exploiting loopholes in the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling in order to kill nearly 2,000 whales each year, even though there has been global moratorium on commercial whaling since 1982. Exemptions to this can occur if a nation objects to the law, like Norway; a nation claims the hunt is done for scientific purposes, like Japan; or an aboriginal group is granted permission by the IWC for subsistence-level hunting.
The World Wildlife Fund is one environmental organization that is lobbying to bring whale hunting under the strict control of the IWC and wants the group to expand its scope to address other human activities that threaten the whales in order to ensure the survival of our most threatened species.
Source: BecauseAction.com
